


A Life Worth Living

by bluerosebouquet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Abusive John Winchester, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bi Dean, F/M, M/M, Physical Abuse, sam is the best brother, this is very angsty but sort of has a happy ending? idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 23:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21064958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluerosebouquet/pseuds/bluerosebouquet
Summary: Dean Winchester has had a lot of relationships.  Some of them mean more than others, and some of them taught him things he won't forget.





	A Life Worth Living

Dean’s first crush was Eleanor Andrews when he was four years old. She was blond and had pink ribbons at the end of her pigtails. She and Dean pretended to get married in the playground in Lawrence, Kansas and promised to be together forever. The last time he saw her was the day that Mary died, and he had given her a worm he found in the grass. She said she’d keep it forever.

When Mary died, John made Dean become a man overnight. He was four years old and told how to hold a shotgun that was taller than him. They spent the next few years on the road, or at Bobby’s, or at Pastor Jim’s. Dean saw less of his father than he’d like to admit, but took care of Sam, because that’s what John told him to do. “Watch out for Sammy” was the constant mantra he was never, not for one second, allowed to forget.

When Dean was eight and Sam was four, John started taking him on the road with him. Different hotels, cities, towns, highways every week. At first it was cool, Dean liked watching the winding asphalt roads, twisting up towards mountains or around lakes, sometimes windy, sometimes still, sometimes hot, and sometimes snowy. Hotels always had TV and a bed all to himself. He would take Sam to preschool and walk over to school himself, where everyone always thought he was cool because he was always the new kid. He would leave school, pick up Sam, walk back to whatever hotel they were staying in that week, make Sam dinner, tuck him in, and then keep watch for anything that might come in. It was kinda lonely sometimes, especially since they moved around so much, but that was okay, as long as he could take care of Sam.

When Dean was ten, he met Sarah Deleon when John had them stay in Lafayette, Indiana for two months while he hunted some ghouls. She had brown hair and bright green eyes and wasn’t interested in talking to him, which made Dean want to talk to her even more. He met her when he was trying to drag Sam out of the library after school. He recognized her from his class and had swaggered over to her the way he had seen the cowboys do in his favorite Western movies. She had barely looked up from her book until Sam asked what she was reading. Turns out it was a book about a cowdog named Hank, and Dean ended up stealing it from the library and reading it every night. He really wanted to live on a ranch sometimes.

She, Dean, and Sam were pretty much inseparable for the next few weeks, staying at the library right up until closing, until Mrs. May told them all to go home before it got too dark. Dean liked the way Sarah laughed at him and told him to read more, and he really liked the way she listened to Sam. When John came back and told them to get in the car one early morning, Dean felt an ache in his chest that he didn’t get to say goodbye.

As the years wore on, the novelty of travel wore off. Hotels weren’t interesting anymore, just more of the same. The food was almost always bad, and the cool factor of being the new kid transformed into being the weird kid by the time Dean hit middle school. Dean was Sam’s constant protector, and even though he would do anything for his brother, even give him the last of the Lucky Charms, sometimes he just wanted to be able to get a soda without worrying about what John would say if he did. But, of course, the one time he did that, a shtriga almost killed Sam, and John, bursting in at the exact right moment, did what Dean couldn’t do, and never looked at Dean the same way again.

Dean’s first kiss was a girl named Bria Zuniga, and she kissed Dean behind the school in Pinedale, Wyoming when he was thirteen. She had black hair and bright blue eyes, and Dean remembered how nervous he had been when she had leaned in, he thought he was gonna be bad at it. John had dragged them out of there two days later, and Dean had given Bria another kiss before they left. John had clapped him on the shoulder.

Things got complicated when he turned fourteen. Dean and Sam, who was growing like a total weed and was going to be taller than Dean, damn him, were left in Riverside, Iowa, James T. Kirk’s future birthplace, which was totally awesome, while John hunted a demon in the area. That was where Dean met Jim Barnes, and it was like he could see through Dean’s cool guy loner persona. He had light brown hair and dark brown eyes and they bonded over Star Trek and Batman, and Jim even showed Dean his comic collection, which was pretty cool. He introduced Dean to Kurt Vonnegut and gave him the copy of _Cat’s Cradle_ Dean still has to this day. Dean introduced him to Led Zeppelin, and when Sam was studying at the hotel and insisted that he could take care of himself for a couple of hours, they went out to the movies and saw Jurassic Park. That night, they walked back towards Jim’s house, talking about which dinosaur they would keep as a pet, when Dean kissed him. It was simple and short and kinda sweet, and afterward Jim put his hand in Dean’s and Dean walked him to the door. Four days later, right after school, John was waiting for them, the Impala running and the kind of look on his face that told Dean not to push any buttons if he didn’t want a black eye, but he was always a risk-taker, so he ran back inside and gave Jim one last kiss in the dirty school bathroom before watching Jim Kirk’s future birthplace fade away like fogged breath on the window of the Impala.

Dean was sixteen when John had told the cops that he could rot in prison. He had given the cop a black eye and they had shipped him off to Sonny’s and even though it hurt to be away from Sam, for the first time in his life, Dean had friends, he did well in school, he made the wrestling team, and he met Robin. She had dark hair and dark eyes with a kind smile. Sonny never made him feel like he was less than, and for the first time, he didn’t have to think about what was out there in the dark. He still missed Sam, but not having John around was like being able to see blue sky after years and years of overcast. He told Robin his dreams, talked about his love of cars, how much he liked to sing. She listened, and he listened to her dreams, let her take all the photos of him she wanted, and sort of, kind of, fell in love with her. She kissed him on Sonny’s couch with a guitar between them, and he made promises to her that he really wished he could keep. And when John came back on the night of his first school dance, his dance with Robin, he really wished he could be someone other than Dean Winchester. Sonny gave him a choice, gave him a chance at normal, at Robin, at a family that didn’t drink too much and bruise your wrists when you didn’t do the dishes. But when he looked out the window and saw Sam with his stupid toy plane, he knew. Dean couldn’t, wouldn’t leave Sam.

After Robin, Dean didn’t really pay attention to anyone but Sam. He met girls, flirted with girls, kissed girls, hooked up with girls, and then left girls as easy as drawing breath. And hell, when you move around every other week it was easy. Arrogance and disdain for school bought him cool guy cred, and cool guy cred usually meant that people left him alone. When he was seventeen, he met Amanda Heckerling at Truman High. She was blonde with blue eyes and was whip smart. She kissed him and it tasted like candy. He liked her a lot, but he didn’t want to feel that vulnerability he felt with Robin, and when she called him out for being afraid, he did what he did best. He ran away.

Dean got his GED at nineteen and watched Sam go from little brother to actual man. He studied hard and Dean was fiercely proud of him for it. And then, one night, when Dean was twenty, he came back from a bar in Flagstaff, Arizona where they were staying, and Sam was gone. Panic settled in his throat like someone was choking him. He spent a week without sleeping, looking everywhere for Sam. He checked every hotel, snuck his way to every security room with cameras he could, asking anyone who would pay him the time of day if they had seen him, but no one had. And then, nine days after Sam had disappeared, John came back, and if Dean had wished he was dead before, it was nothing to what John made him feel. He was pretty sure his jaw was fractured and he knew he had some cracked ribs, but that was nothing to him, all that mattered was finding Sam, getting Sam home. John found him in some shitty little apartment on the outskirts of town with pizza boxes and a dog and a stolen car outside. Dean had gripped him tightly and ignored Sam’s questions about the state of his face. He tripped, he said, coming out of a bar. Sam told him he drank too much. Dean looked at John’s bruised knuckles and quietly thought he didn’t drink enough.

Dean met Andrew Hawkins on his twenty-first birthday in Roundup, Montana. Sam was studying for the ACT, whatever that is, and John was out on an extended rugaru hunt or drinking binge. Andrew had hazel eyes and dark brown hair and they made conversation over a friendly game of pool. A friendly conversation turned into too many shots, and then they stumbled into the alley behind the bar, away from the prying pink neon lights, and Dean let himself touch and be touched, knowing that it meant nothing, but meaning everything in the moment. Andrew took control in a way that Dean had never known, and when he came back to the hotel with too many hickies on his neck, Sam laughed and said he hoped she didn’t look half as bad as Dean did. Dean laughed to hide the shame that rose like vomit in his throat.

Sam left for Stanford when Dean was twenty-two. When he told John, during the middle of an argument, because Sam always had impeccable timing, Dean felt like the world was falling out from under him. Who the hell was he if he didn’t have Sam? He couldn’t even remember being his own person anymore. John had tried everything, screaming, slamming things into walls, breaking glass, getting in Sam’s space, but Sam wasn’t afraid of him anymore, and John had never hit Sam, not that Dean would ever have let him. Sam left that night, taking only what he could carry in a bag and looking back at Dean with what Dean thought might be an apology in his face. John had yelled after him that if he was going to go he should stay gone, and that was that. The frail wooden door slammed behind him, and Dean’s little brother was out on his own. Even years later, Dean didn’t tell Sam about the rest of that night, but he was lucky to survive it. He kept John at arm’s length after that, after his right arm had healed, anyway.

Dean tried to be a nomad, not get attached to anyone for anything except for the Impala. He and John made tracks across the country, so many miles on the odometer he almost expected it to break. John routinely dragged them to the west coast just to see what Sam was up to, and that was when he started to let Dean off on his own. The grooves in the highway were his best friends, and he went places John would never go. The deep South, the Canadian border, bigger cities, all the places he had wanted to be when he was younger. He fought ghouls and ghosts and demons and vamps. He repaired junker cars when he stopped by Bobby’s every so often. He checked in with John every other day and they sometimes met up for a hunt. He met people, fucked them, and then left. Had the bendiest weekend of his life with Lisa Braeden. It wasn’t really freedom, but it was about as close as he could hope for.

Dean met Cassie in Mississippi when he was twenty-four. She had dark hair and dark eyes. She was smarter than him, prettier than him, and even though he had a pact with himself to never get attached, she made herself comfortable in his heart. He felt himself falling, like he had taken a running leap off a cliff and there was nothing below him but endless air and sharp rocks at the bottom. So, in the middle of the night, he did what John would have done, and he left, trying to ignore the tears that spilled from his eyes as he crossed the Alabama border.

John gave him the Impala on his twenty-fifth birthday. She was everything he had ever wanted in a car. His first home, with his and Sam’s initials carved in the back. John had bruised the back of his neck with his hand and told him to take care of the car. Dean swore he wouldn’t let him down.

It all went to hell when Dean met Connor Stevens two months later. He was on a routine hunt with John. Vengeful spirit, whatever. He was doing research in the library when this dorky guy with glasses, a bow tie, red hair, and blue eyes sat down at his table. The got to talking about what they were reading and ended up having dinner at a way too nice restaurant that Connor suggested. It was a break from burgers and beer and the ever-looming presence of John. Connor asked him halfway through if this was a date, and Dean blushingly said he hoped so. They ended up back at Dean’s room since John would be out most of the night. Until, of course, he wasn’t. Dean was used to being afraid of John, but never before had he felt terror like that. John didn’t speak to him for nearly two months, and Dean was left floundering in a lake of guilt and shame, mixed with a healthy dose of defiance, but he always came back to John, because that’s what a good son does.

When John disappeared when Dean was twenty-six, he didn’t have anyone to turn to, so he went back to Sam. He hated that he had to take Sam away from his life, where he was clearly thriving with his very pretty girlfriend Jess and his good grades, but Dean was no soldier with no one to follow, and he swore to himself that once they found John that he would let Sam go. But the universe never seemed to give him what he wanted, and Dean had to drag Sam away from Jess burning on the ceiling, just like their mother had.

He and Sam become hunters together, and even though he knew he could never heal the pain of losing Jess, he could at least make it so that the Impala became Sam’s home again. Her tires sped along the winding roads all across the country, and even though it was selfish, having Sam back made Dean feel as calm as he had in years.

John died when Dean was twenty-seven. Dean felt his heart break, but also felt like someone had taken handcuffs off him that he had been wearing for so long he didn’t even realize he was wearing them.

Dean went to hell when he was twenty-nine. The sound of the hellhounds tearing through the house towards him were terrifying, but the knowledge that he had done this for Sam made him feel a little better about getting ripped to shreds by dogs from hell.

Hell was worse than he could have ever imagined. Torture was about the best thing that could happen to you down there. Allistair had convinced him to pick up a knife, and even though he knew it was wrong, he knew that John would hate him for what he was doing, he took the knife from Allistair and thought, what the hell, John hated him anyway.

Dean met Castiel when he was thirty. He had black hair and blue eyes and giant black wings. He left a mark on Dean even before they met. He stood too close to Dean and made him feel like he was being x-rayed every time they made eye contact, but Dean could never make himself look away.

Dean settled down with Lisa Braeden when he was thirty-one. She had black hair and brown eyes and the kindest and most beautiful heart he had ever known. He was very lucky to have her and Ben. Probably a little too lucky. He slept with a gun under his pillow every night. You never knew what was waiting in the dark. He had nightmares about Sam throwing himself in the pit and she would comfort him, and when Sam showed back up when he was thirty-two, she let him go hunt with him. He made her forget him when he was thirty, and that was a wound that he knew would never really heal.

Dean went to Purgatory when he was thirty-four. He spent a year there with Benny, vamp turned new best friend in tow, and every night, when he was trying to sleep, he would think of one thing, where, how, when to find Cas. It was stupid, he was probably dead, Benny said pretty much every day, but until they found a pile of bones with a trenchcoat, Dean wouldn’t believe that. They ended up finding him, and losing Cas to Purgatory just as he and Benny escaped made Dean want to jump right back into it, and he wasn’t really sure why.

He met Amara when he was thirty-seven. She was all powerful and deeply frightening, but Dean felt a pull towards her that he had never felt towards anyone or anything. She knew this, she tried to use it against him, but something broke when she started torturing Cas, probably because they were best friends. Because Dean needed Cas. He needed Cas. He needed Cas.

Dean lost Cas to an angel blade held by Lucifer when he was thirty-nine. He begged God, Chuck, whatever to bring him back. It was like someone punched a hole in his chest, and when they burned his body, it sort of felt like Dean was burning too.

Jack brought Cas back when Dean was thirty-nine. It felt like he had aged forty years since he last saw him. He didn’t tell Cas that he didn’t cope well with him being gone, but he thought Cas knew, because Cas knew everything about him. They went back to the way things should be. They hunted, watched movies, sang terribly in the Impala, and Dean felt like he really, truly, had a family again. He would look at Cas when he didn’t think Cas could see, and even though he knew they were best friends and nothing more, sometimes Dean would think about just how beautiful Cas was.

Dean kissed Cas when he was forty-one. He was older, that there was less time, that Chuck was going to kill him one way or another, and Dean didn’t want Cas to be another what if, especially if he was about to spend eternity in Hell, which is probably where he would end up anyway. He kissed him in the Impala, when he and Cas tried to escape Belphegor’s incessant talking and Sam had disappeared to read in his room in the bunker. Zeppelin played softly from the Impala’s speakers, and Dean instinctually leaned forward, like he had meant to do it all his life. Cas’ lips were chapped and soft and Dean didn’t ever want to pull back from him. But when he did, Cas gave him the kind of smile that made it all worth it. The pain, the self-hatred, the hunting, the angels, devils, destiny, and God himself are all worth dealing with if it meant that this moment could exist with Cas in the Impala.

Dean told Sam the truth when he was forty-one. He told him about John, about Flagstaff, about Stanford, and about Jim, Andrew, Robin, Cas, and all the rest. Dean laid his heart out on the line, because if anyone deserved to know who he really was, it was Sam. And Sam, because he was the best brother in the world, didn’t say anything, just leaned forward and hugged Dean as tightly as he had when Dean left Sonny’s. It was one of those hugs that sort of made the world turn a little easier, and Dean knew that he was still the luckiest guy on earth to have Sam Winchester as his brother. His family, Sam and Cas, they’re what make life worth living, and even if they had ten years of ten minutes left together, Dean was finally going to make the most of it.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't stop writing bi Dean stuff because I love him so much and he is so bi. Also I am Not A Fan of John Winchester so let that be known lol.


End file.
